While that 15% is based on spending, not surprising, the number of units is higher. The units are how many books are sold/licensed, versus how much is paid for them. Since, on balance, p-books (paperbooks) cost more than e-books, we would expect their unit share to be higher than their spending share.

Interestingly, though, that share is still only 21%.

Let’s see…21 is forty percent higher than 15, so that could be about right.

There are a lot of very important trends (well, data points…we don’t know if they are really trends yet)…I don’t want to take too much away from the article, so I’m going to recommend you read it.

I’ll just point out a couple of things, and then let you read the details:

Online bookselling may be losing marketshare

Bookstore chain marketshare is way down

EBR (E-Book Readership) was down…both for the NOOK and the Kindle

Amazon’s change in Cloud Drive plans…how it helps you

I have to say, Amazon does not do a great job of explaining things to people when they introduce a new feature, service, or device.

Part of it is most people’s natural skepticism (I have a genetic abnormality…I’m an optimist). ;) They naturally expect that any change is going to be for the bad.

I’ve taught change management before, and this is the biggest tip I can give you there.

Whenever you announce a change, always tell them what is not changing first.

For example, if you restructure your company, your employees will be so concerned that their jobs are going to be eliminated that they won’t hear anything else you say until you address that.

So, you start out with something like, “First, let me assure you: no one here is having their job eliminated, and no one is getting a pay cut. You will continue to do the same work you’ve been doing, which we really value. What’s happening is that management is changing, and some of you may have a different boss…”

In this case, Amazon could have led (on the page, not necessarily in the press release…maybe in an e-mail) with “We have some exciting new plans available for the Amazon Cloud Drive. This will not affect the free storage customers already get for their Amazon purchases, and will actually increase the storage they get when using Amazon’s Personal Documents service…at no additional cost. New options include…”

where people were concerned that either Amazon was going to start charging them for storing their Kindle store purchases, or charge them for any amount of personal documents they are storing using the Personal Documents service.

I have confirmed with Amazon: neither of those are true.

This is what I asked Amazon about, which was confirmed:

Under the new system:

Non-Prime member/non-Fire owner without a plan:

Unlimited Kindle Personal Docs. They do not count towards a storage limit, because they count for zero.

No other free non-Kindle Personal Doc storage (they used to have some).

Prime member/Fire owner without upgrading:

Unlimited photo storageUnlimited Kindle Personal Docs storage5GB of storage for other things, like spreadsheets and presentations

Note that there is a group that has a loss from this change. If someone is not a Prime member and does not have a Fire, they no longer have free storage for things like spreadsheets.

However, the plus that everybody got is no limit on storage of personal documents.

Meanwhile, in the UK

In the first article, I was talking about the USA.

Well, we also have statistics for the UK…and e-books are doing much better there!

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown: $2.99 ($10.20 in paperback)

Station Eleven: A novel by Emily St. John Mandel: $2.99 ($12.33 in paperback)

I’m going to keep that in mind when gift giving occasions arise!

What do you think? Is the e-book marketshare growth slowing down? If so, why? Is it temporary? Will we ever get to more than 50% unit sales being e-books in the USA? Why are e-books a bigger force in the UK? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

See How Small
by Scott Blackwood
2.9 stars | 63 reviews
$3.99
#8262 paid in the Kindle store

Hm…this one is the lowest rated one I’ve looked at so far, but the reviews are actually encouraging to me. It sounds like it is a difficult book…which is something I can find attractive, but I know that being nontraditional doesn’t always been being good. ;) It can, but it’s not enough.

Note that this one says the price was set by the publisher…that’s the new version of the Agency Model at work, I think. Amazon can still discount, and that may be happening here, or it might be that the publisher has it on sale.

Just to get a bit of trivia in here, the title is a pun on “Noughts and Crosses”, which is a British term for what Americans call “Tic Tac Toe”. A “nought” is a zero…further trivia, Jethro Bodine on the Beverly Hillbillies played at being a “double nought spy”, like James Bond. “Nought” can also be spelled “naught”, but some people differentiate those, with “nought” being the number (the actual symbol) and “naught” being sort of the state of nothingness, I believe…as in, “All of our best efforts came to naught”.

The Jaguar’s Children
by John Vaillant
4.3 stars | 37 reviews
$2.99
#6800 paid in the Kindle store

There you go! A lot of these were from Big 5 publishers (I saw Hachette and Macmillan), but I’m not quite sure why they are calling them “favorites” specifically. Several of them were actually ranked under four stars, and they aren’t the bestselling books. Everybody’s book may be somebody’s favorite ;) and if these aren’t yours, well…it’s still a deal. ;)

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

These are well-known magazines, for $5 for a whole year…not per month or per issue. Well, you can get the single current issue of some of them for $4.99…but why not get the whole year for a penny more?

As always, check the price before you click the Buy button…it may not apply in your country, and the sale might be over before you get to it.

Oh, and check the link that says, “Available on these devices,” to make sure it is compatible with the device you use. The first couple I checked were only available on Fire tablets (including the earlier Kindle Fire tablets), and the Fire Phone.

Here are the 19 at time of writing:

Real Simple

People Stylewatch

Health

InStyle

Southern Living

Cooking Light

This Old House

All You

Food & Wine

Essence

Money

Sunset

Coastal Living

New York

Fortune

Travel & Leisure

Time for Kids

Working Mother

Boating

I should mention that the general situation with magazines through the Kindle store has gotten much better over time.

You can now read the same subscription on multiple compatible devices on the account for the same price.

You also have access to the back issues for as far back as you’ve been a subscriber…at least, I know that’s usually true.

Even those these are really good deals, I do wish Amazon would stop calling them “bundles”. They aren’t. If it was a bundle, you could get them all with one click. You have to get each one of these at a time.

That said, you can really save some money on popular apps!

When you buy an app, by the way, you can have it stored in your cloud only…you don’t need to put it on one of your devices until you want it there.

I think that’s because an app can take up a whole more memory on your device than an e-book will. You can have e-books sent to your Cloud Reader (I do that), but I would prefer if I could just say “cloud only” for the e-books as well.

Here are the titles:

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

Cut the Rope (just to point out the popularity, this one has a 4.4 star rating out of 5, and 3227 customer reviews)

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Universal Weapon (yep, the Marvel characters)

World of Goo

Simple Planes

Super Why! (from PBS Kids)

G-Stomper Studio

Slingshot Racing

Cross DJ Pro

FolderSync

Elements of Photography Pro

Deep Under the Sky

Atomus HD

EasyTether

Reading Trainer (it’s not specifically a speed reading app, but suggests it can double your reading in days…and has training for comprehension)

I must say…this seems like a particularly good selection! The ratings are all over four stars, and there are two here for the Fire TV (and on for the Fire TV stick). A number of these also appear to me to be free for the first time. I say that because there were some interesting ones I didn’t have yet…and my default with free apps is to get them and store the in the Cloud.

I’ll amend that a bit…I don’t go into the Appstore and start “buying” their thousands of free apps! I do get the FAOTD (Free App of the Day) pretty much every day.

Oh, and if you’d prefer to pay a little something to get ad-free versions of the apps, there is a Rovio Spring Sale happening. Some Angry Birds games which are usually $2.99 are $0.99 right now. You can find them on this Rovio page (along with the free, ad-supported versions):

That one goes through March 30th, and this is a series of books from Oxford University Press.

They are sort of background briefings on topics of current interest…and I see some well-known authorities listed as authors. For example, Allan Friedman is the co-author of a book on cybersecurity and cyberwar, and Andrew Finkel contributes a book on Turkey.

There are some very controversial subjects covered here, and if these are done in a neutral (or at least, non-advocatory) style that will give you real information, I could see them being quite valuable (and possibly good gifts).

One more thing: I’m going to point out a few individual books on sale. Note that the price can change any time, so again, check before you buy.

Tracks: One Woman’s Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback by Robyn Davidson | 4.2 stars | 233 reviews | $2.99 | about 80% off, also available through Kindle Unlimited (I’m adding it to the wish list I use to keep track of KU books)

There you go!

Bargainjoy!

Um…I usually say “Enjoy” on something like this, but I wanted to indicate the bargains…so I combined the two words. A portmanteau for you! ;)

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

These are typically e-books which are genuinely on sale…they aren’t just cheap to begin with. :)

When the sale is over, they tend to go back up in price…although they may be reduced again later, of course.

Remember, as always, that you can buy e-books as gifts and delay the delivery until the appropriate date. You can also print out the gift and just hold on to it, so you have something to wrap. ;) In that case, you don’t really need to specify to whom it goes, so these can also be good “emergency gifts” (we always keep a few of those around).

Do check the price before you click or tap that “Buy button”…these prices may not apply in your country (and I have readers in a lot of countries) :) and I think it’s possible for books to go in and out of the set.

as part of the $9.99 monthly membership. It feels to me like Amazon sometimes uses the sales to promote KU, although there are now enough KU books that it may just be coincidence. On the other hand, they may be able to more freely discount the books which are in KU, so that may be part of it as well.

Here are some that caught my eye:

Crossroads
by Wm. Paul Young
4.5 stars out of 5 | 1,451 customer reviews
$2.99 at time of writing

That’s a very high review rating, but this is a faith-based book…and I’ve mentioned before that I think they tend to have higher scores. Don’t know why that is: they could actually be better, or could be that the audience for them is more generous with stars (which could be for different reasons). Still, that many reviews makes it impressive. Oh, and this is published by Hachette, so Big 5 publishers are part of this sale.

I’ve been a vegetarian for a very long time. This is a popular book that focuses on “green smoothies”, which is something I don’t do. :) I only drink water…I just found that simplifies things quite a bit, and has some health benefits. I carry a Brita Sport Water Filter Bottle (at AmazonSmile*) with me at work (in my laptop case…away from the computer, just in case, but it hasn’t leaked)…it’s much cheaper than buying bottled water, and I don’t taste anything with it (which I did with some thermoses). I also like that I’m not dealing with all those empties from bottled water.

Tinkers
by Paul Harding
3.5 stars | 402 reviews
$3.99

A Pulitzer Prize winning debut novel…you don’t get to say that very often. :)

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help! By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

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I realized after a recent post that, while I use categories in this blog to identify the nature of posts, I haven’t ever explained that to the readers.

That can cause some confusion. In that post, I was offering my opinion about something, and a reader reasonably took it as me offering something I could prove.

That happens to me in real life, too. :)

People tend to believe me…that’s valuable for me as a trainer, and I’m sure I’ve gotten positive reinforcement for ways of communicating that suggest that I am a credible source of information.

Even when I’ve told people in person that, “I really don’t know, I’m just guessing,” they may report it as fact and tell people it was true because I said it. :)

On the blog, I tend to think people see the category and that it helps them interpret what I am saying. That’s probably foolish, on my part…the categories appear after the post, not before, so it’s really going to be more whatever their expectations are when they start reading it.

Still, I thought it would be useful to share the categories I am currently using, and tell you a bit about them. The number in parentheses is the number of posts

Oh, and the same post might have multiple categories! That’s why some categories appear to have so many posts (like the Amazon Echo). If I write a short piece about something in one of the Roundups, that would show up as one of the posts below…even if it was only a couple of sentences.

A Day in the LIfe of a Kindleer(4): I do these posts about once a year, just to share how I personally am using Kindles and other Amazon devices. I’ll basically go through a typical day. I think that tends to help people discover options for them

A Kindle Abandoned (4): this is my four-part Sherlock Holmes parody. Honestly, I think it came out quite well

A Kindle Carol (3): more fiction…a parody of A Christmas Carol. I’d say it has some of my best just straight up writing. I tend to repost it during the holidays, which also gives me the ability to focus more on my family at that time

Accessibility (5): primarily, this has to do with text-to-speech, although I’ve addressed other accessibility issues

Advice (15): this may be tongue in cheek at times, but it’s advice I give

Advice to Amazon (14): I understand that at least some Amazon employees read this blog, and I do get sent press releases. Hopefully, I have or will make the Kindle experience better for everyone at some point

Agency Model (18): the Agency Model is a pricing strategy wherein the publisher sets the price and Amazon just acts as “the agent”. We may not have seen my last post on this…

Amazon Aisles (4): I also have a section of links for these on the blogsite. When you are walking through a physical bookstore (I used to manage one), you go down aisles for different subjects or different categories. These posts have to do with sections of the Amazon website

Amazon Echo (13): Amazon’s ambient computing device. I’m supposed to get mine at the end of May…or in July

Amazon statements (1): I’m not sure this one needs its own category, but the intent was to link to actual statements from Amazon

Analysis (200): as you can see, one of the most common categories. When I label something as “analysis”, it means I’ve done actual work on it myself, typically crunching numbers. The Snapshots are a sub-category of this. When I’ve done the math, I’m prepared to be challenged on it :)

Discovery (10): how you can find books to read…I think will become increasing important

Doctor Watson’s Blog (4): again, the Sherlock Holmes parody. Why have both categories? The other one is a sub-category of this one…I wanted to leave open writing another Doctor Watson’s Blog…I rather enjoyed it

Eddiecoms (7): part of the humor category: fake comments that I get that are apparently really ads, and can be quite surreal

Excerpts (22): excerpts from public domain books. I’ve heard from my readers that they aren’t big fans of this for the most part, so I don’t do it very often

Flash posts (502): I used to label breaking news posts with “Flash!” in the beginning. Some people got confused with Adobe Flash, and I think I was just hearkening back to an earlier era (like Walter Winchell: “Flash! To Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at see…let’s go to press!” Not sure that’s an actual quotation, by the way…

Menu Maps (6): when I do a menu map, I go through the options in a device’s menus. I find this to be very instructive for me, and I think useful for my readers. I also like to refer back to them sometimes after an update

Uncategorized (31): there really shouldn’t be any of these, but what sometimes happens is the post gets saved before I’ve assigned a category…and it automatically puts the Uncategorized category on it. If I don’t notice that and add another category, it doesn’t take this one away

Updates (49): I started putting all of the Version categories below into this

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help! By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Amazon lists that information prominently. If they are, then you need to consider whether it is worth buying them…even at these low prices. While they are in KU, you can, if you are a subscriber (and there’s a free month available right now), read them at no additional cost. There are, of course, advantages to owning books, especially if you want to re-read them. A book could move out of KU at any time. Even if you think you want to own it, if you are a KU member, you could always read it first to make sure. ;) I will mark them with KU.

I’m going to list some of the $3.99 or lower ones that caught my eye…I’m not necessarily recommending them, but I do think they are interesting.

The ones I list also don’t block text-to-speech access**…but I think blocking it is becoming rarer.

The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America’s Future
by Jonathan Cahn
4.6 stars out of 5 | 6,477 customer reviews

This is a major price cut on a very popular book (sales rank #439 out of more than three million). In the sale, it is $3.99 versus a digital list price of $16.99. It is faith based, and I’ve mentioned, I’ve noticed those tend to have higher average reviews.

I sold a lot of this Locus Award winning novel when I managed a brick and mortar bookstore. Be aware, though, that you’ll probably feel like it doesn’t finish the story and want to go on to the others.

The Dreadful Debutante (The Royal Ambition Series Book 1)
by M. C. Beaton
4.2 stars | 75 reviews

Saramago is a Nobel Prize winner who wrote Blindness, which was adapted into a movie with Julianne Moore (and reminded me of The Day of the Triffids). Another one for my Kindle Unlimited Wish List.

The Quick and the Dead
by Louis L’Amour
4.5 stars | 46 reviews

L’Amour is, of course, one of the most popular writers of Westerns.

Curious George Visits the Dentist
by H. A. Rey
4.7 stars | 3 reviews

The Girl with No Name: The Incredible story of a Child Raised by Monkeys
by Marina Chapman, Lynne Barrett-Lee
4.5 stars | 197 reviews
Kindle Unlimited

This is a true story…which makes it quite remarkable. Even Edgar Rice Burroughs didn’t fictionalize Tarzan being raised by monkeys…or the great apes we know, for that matter. Completely unrelated to the book immediately above. ;) This one is going on my Kindle Unlimited Wish List.

You can get two (this is the third month in a row where that has been the case) of the four books to own (not borrow) for free…these are books which will be actually released next month. The choices this month are:

Younger by Suzanne Munshower (thriller)

Helen of Sparta by Amalia Carosella (historical fiction)

It Had to Be Him by Tamra Baumann (romance)

The Gemini Effect by Chuck Grossart (science fiction thriller)

Well, I knew I would probably go with The Gemini Effect (while I consider myself an eclectic reader, science fiction is a plus). However, I read through the information about the other books to pick my second. I decided to go with Helen of Sparta. The title was intriguing: I know the legend reasonably well, and I could see how Helen might even choose to be known that way. I’ve also been rewatching The Time Tunnel recently, and saw a Trojan War episode not that long ago. :)

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help! By the way, it’s been interesting lately to see Amazon remind me to “start at AmazonSmile” if I check a link on the original Amazon site. I do buy from AmazonSmile, but I have a lot of stored links I use to check for things.

** A Kindle with text-to-speech can read any text downloaded to it…unless that access is blocked by the publisher inserting code into the file to prevent it. That’s why you can have the device read personal documents to you (I’ve done that). I believe that this sort of access blocking disproportionately disadvantages the disabled, although I also believe it is legal (provided that there is at least one accessible version of each e-book available, however, that one can require a certification of disability). For that reason, I don’t deliberately link to books which block TTS access here (although it may happen accidentally, particularly if the access is blocked after I’ve linked it). I do believe this is a personal decision, and there are legitimate arguments for purchasing those books.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

This the least expensive Kindle at this point, and it’s certainly a serviceable device. It does have a touchscreen, but does not have the built-in light of the Paperwhite or the Voyage. As is the case with all current non-Fire Kindles, it does not have audio (so no music, audiobooks, or text-to-speech).

This could be a good “guest Kindle”, though, and might be a good Kindle for a responsible child.

I do like the Paperwhite better, but this is literally less than half the price of that $119 device at this point.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Well, Amazon has fudged that a bit by including more than one book for the same movie. :)

There are also many other books on which movies have been based which are available at Amazon…large numbers of them for free (public domain titles, like Dracula, Moby Dick, and so on).

Still, this is an interesting set.

The fact that a movie was made from a book does say something about it.

Even though the movie may be significantly different from the book (and that can be a good or bad thing), there is still something in the book that got people to put money into an adaptation.

Let’s take a look at the options in this sale…remember to check the price before you click or tap that Buy button. Prices are for today, and may not apply in your country.

Life of Pi
Yann Martel
4.3 out of 5 stars | 6,020 customer reviews
Movie: Life of Pi (2012)
Oscar wins (I presume this sale is to tie into the Oscars tomorrow): Directing; Cinematography; Score; Visual Effects
Additional Oscar nominations: Best Picture; Adapted Screenplay; Editing; Sound Mixing; Sound Editing; Original Song; Production Design
Available as part of Kindle Unlimited

The Princess Bride
by William Goldman
4.5 stars | 1380 reviews
Movie: The Princess Bride (1987)
Oscar wins: none
Additional Oscar nominations: Best Score
Available as part of Kindle Unlimited

All the King’s Men
by Robert Penn Warren
4.3 stars | 328 reviews
Movie: All the King’s Men (1949)
Oscar wins: Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Actress
Additional Oscar nominations: Supporting Actor; Director; Writing; Editing
Movie (2): All the King’s Men (2006)
Oscar wins: none
Additional Oscar nominations: none
Available as part of Kindle Unlimited

The Boxtrolls
by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
Note: this is not the book credited as the source of the movie…that’s Here Be Monsters by Alan Snow
4.8 stars | 10 reviews
Movie: The Boxtrolls
Oscar wins: too soon to tell (nominated this year)
Additional Oscar nominations: Animated Feature

but this is where we stand right now on our group predictions for this year’s Adapted Screenplay Oscar:

The Imitation Game (Graham Moore): 76% chance

The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten): 73% chance

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle): 60% chance

American Sniper (Jason Hall): 47% chance

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson): 44% chance

Don’t like the group’s predictions? There is still to play in this free game! ;)

What do you think? What is your favorite movie adaptation of a book? Is there a movie you think was better than the book? What book do you still think should be made into a movie which hasn’t been? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

In some ways, it’s about Amazon’s positioning as knowledgeable about books…knowledgeable and credible, which are not synonyms. You can be knowledgeable and have no one believe you (ask Cassandra), and you can be credible without having a lot of knowledge on a topic.

When I’ve trained trainers, I’ve even taught the latter…how to be credible.

A few quick notes on that:

Use numbers…that always impresses people. For example, if I was teaching an Excel class many years ago, I could be in front of people who thought they knew Excel quite well. I could say (back then), “There are 256 columns in Excel…does anyone know how many rows? 65,536.” That gave me instant credibility…even if it was just a memorized fact. It doesn’t have to be a complicated number: “There were seven castaways on Gilligan’s Island.” That may get people counting to confirm…and when they do, they are impressed with you

When in doubt, use big words. That also makes you sound credible…not approachable or relatable, necessarily, but it does help with credibility. :) That’s only true if you use them correctly…well, if somebody knows what the word actually means, that is. I have to reset my reaction when someone uses the word “decimated” (often “absolutely decimated” or “completely decimated”) to indicate a nearly complete reduction. “Decimated” technically means “reduced by one tenth”. If there were 100 soldiers, and you reduced it to ninety, you decimated that group. At least, that’s what it used to mean…my now adult kid who is a linguist has convinced me that it is usage that matters. I still have the emotional reaction, but I can reset it :)

Use the jargon. I work with medical folks, and when I can use a word that they use appropriately, it really ups my credibility

Speak quickly. Again, this is just when you are establishing credibility, not when you are training a concept. Most people don’t think you can lie at high speeds…that you have to think about what you are saying too much. If you excitedly say something, smashingallthewordstogether, people will think you are being honest. Don’t believe me? Try saying something really slowly and deliberately out loud…it will likely sound even to you like you are lying

Be imperfect. Pause, use an “um”, look to the ceiling (up to the left, typically), laugh at yourself for what you just said…those can all make you seem genuine, and not rehearsed

Now, clearly, you can’t just follow techniques to gain credibility…you need to be reacting in the moment and have empathy for what your audience is feeling.

That said, I come across as credible in person…and it can be a problem for me.

I’ve been a boss.

I’ve said to people something like, “Now, I don’t know yet if this is going to happen, so don’t hold me to it, but it’s possible that we are going to xyz.” I’ve then had people telling others we were going to xyz, and saying, “Bufo said so.”

That means I have to be careful about what I say. :)

I was being observed by one of my favorite managers, and in debriefing a class, the manager said at one point, “Then you did that hypnosis thing you do,” and just went on to another point.

I said something like, “Wait, what? What hypnosis thing?”

I realized later that I do use something like “guided imagery”.

Never, by the way, for nefarious reasons!

It’s just as important and difficult (sometimes) to make people believe in something which is true and good for them as it is to make them believe in something which is false and bad for them.

That said, let’s talk about this list. :)

I do like biographies and memoirs, but I like a lot of things. ;)

Here’s the list from Amazon, and whether or not I’ve read them:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers: no

A Long Way Home by Ishmael Beah: yes

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: no

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson: no

American Caesar by William Manchester: no

American Lion by Jon Meacham: no

American Prometheus by Kai Bird: no

American Sniper by Chris Kyle: no

American Sphinx by Joseph J. Ellis: no

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt: no

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank: yes

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy: no

Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain: yes

Ball Four by Jim Bouton: no

Black Boy by Richard Wright: no

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin: yes

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin: no

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall: no

Bossypants by Tina Fey: no

Cash by Johnny Cash: no

Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie: no

Chronicles by Bob Dylan: no

Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert: no

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose: no

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron: no

De Profundis and Other Personal Writings by Oscar Wilde: no

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller: no

Dorothy Parker by Marion Meade: no

Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama: no

Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp: no

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston: no

E-Mc~2 by David Bodanis: no

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert: no

Endurance by Alfred Lansing: no

Everybody Was So Young by Amanda Vaill: no

Helen Keller: The Story of My Life by Helen Keller: yes

I Am Malala by mlala Yousafzai: no

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: no

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer: no

Just Kids by Patti Smith: no

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain: no

Knock Wood by Candice Bergen: no

Life by Keith Richards: no

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela: no

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: no

Mortality by Christopher Hitchens: no

My Life in France by Julia Child: no

Naked by David Sedaris: no

Napoleon by Andrew Roberts: no

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass: no

Night by Elie Wiesel: no

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin: no

On the Road by Jack Kerouac: no

Open by Andre Agassi: no

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen: no

Personal History by Katharine Graham: no

Robert A. Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro: no

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs: no

Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford: no

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand: no

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan: no

Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov: no

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: no

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: no

Tennessee Williams by John Lahr: no

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone: no

The Andy Warhol Diaries by Andy Warhol: no

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein: no

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X: no

The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll: no

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: no

The Color of Water by James McBride: no

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman: no

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: no

The Diary of Anais Nin by Anais Nin: no

The Diary of Frida Kahlo by Carlos Fuentes: no

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls: no

The Gulag Archipeligo by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: no

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: no

The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans: no

The Last Lone Inventor by Evan I. Schwartz: no

The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr: no

The Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara: no

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester: no

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris: no

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder: no

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer: no

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston: no

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion: no

This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff: no

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow: no

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson: no

Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck: no

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: no

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes: no

Updike by Adam Begley: no

Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff: no

West with the Night by Beryl Markham: no

Wild Swans by Jung Chang: no

Wild by Cheryl Strayed: no

Well, I’ve only read five of these, but I have to say, I was very impressed with some of them. The Helen Keller book is amazing. A Long Way Home was devastating, but great. The Mark Twain book was so modern and so clever.

Certainly, though, there are many others I might list which I have read and which in some small way, let me live someone else’s life for a while.

Amazon knows that, and one of the synergies of their having purchased the social reading website Goodreads, is that they can do a curated list like the above and let people contribute to a crowd sourced one…which they have done:

Without at all claiming that they are the best, here are some other biographies/memoirs which come to mind for me:

A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell…and indeed, several of the Durrell books (not available for the Kindle)

A Job for Superman by Kirk Alyn…Alyn was Superman in the serials, and this book has some great stories! I bought it from Alyn at a science fiction convention, and that may have colored my perception of it. :) Still, I remember some of the stories easily. There was one where Alyn is talking about a scene carrying, I think, Lois Lane out of a burning building down steps. “Action!” Runs down the steps, but they have to reshoot the scene (smoke or something). Another take. Another problem. Another take. Another take. Another take. Eventually, the director says, “Superman, you’re slowing down.” Alyn explains that the actor is heavy, and the director says something like, “Actor? You’re supposed to be carrying a dummy!” That was part of the perception of Alyn on set as being Superman. Two more. :) Superman is animated flying, but they are standing around (very common on a set). Alyn asks what is happening, and they say they are trying to figure out how Superman is going to take off. Alyn, who was a ballet dancer, says, “I can jump over the camera.” Well, this is a tall camera! They don’t believe their star, but Alyn does it. Alyn points out, amused, that Superman takes off from a ballet position. ;) The last one was when They did have to do a close up of Superman flying. What they did was build a chest plate with wires, and Alyn would lay in it with legs (and hips) held straight out. That’s right…the plate didn’t get to Alyn’s hips! Picture doing that for a minute or more while they did the shot. Better, lie down on a table with your hips off the edge and try it…

Books by John A. Keel and Hans Holzer…very different people, very different writing style, sort of connected both writing about “paranormal” things. They are both field investigators and both bring you a feel for what it is like being there

What do you think? What are your favorite biographies and memoirs? I know people who say they don’t like to read non-fiction…what books do you think would convince them? These sorts of books also fit into Common Core…does this show the value of that program? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

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* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

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